“Oh, this cruel, wicked system!” exclaimed Alicia. “How long shall the cry of innocent young victims, doomed to life-long misery, go up to Heaven? Before the English took possession of the Panjab, the probable fate of this fair girl-widow would have been to be burned alive with the corpse of an old man whom she could never have loved; but was such a fate worse than that which the young creature must endure for perhaps forty—fifty years,—even more? It is shameful—it is horrible! But this one victim may be rescued. I have a plan in my head, and I will speak of it to my husband. I think that the merciful Being who breaks the captives’ chains may have sent me to this dark spot to set one prisoner free.” Alicia’s mind was absorbed in forming projects as she was carried home in her doli. She found Harold and his father sitting in the veranda, as the sun was no longer pouring his beams from the eastern quarter, and the veranda did not face the south. The season had not yet arrived when it might be needful to close doors and windows to exclude the hot air, and to live in a kind of twilight; because light is connected with heat. Before fiery June should arrive the new bungalow might be pronounced dry enough to be used by its owners, who would not, however, sleep in it, but aloft on the roof. “O Harold, I must tell you of what I have seen, and what I have been thinking, and consult you as to what I must do,” cried Alicia, as, heated and flushed, she threw herself on the chair which her husband had vacated on her entrance. Alicia in a hurried way described what she had seen in the fort, Mr. Hartley and Harold listening to her story with silent attention. Neither of the missionaries was wont to give violent expression to his feelings; nor was the sad subject of a Hindu widow’s wrongs at all a new one to them. “And now I will tell you what I am set on doing,” continued Alicia; “I mean, of course, if my husband humour his little wife, as he always does. When our Paradise is ready (this sun must have made it as dry as a bone), I mean to bring Premi to live in that nice little convenient room behind my own, which Robin calls my box-room. I do not intend to call her my ayah [a servant], but I will teach her to keep all my things neat, and in her leisure time she shall learn to sew and knit and sing. If Premi turn out in the least bit clever—and there is intelligence in her fine dark eyes—I will teach her to read the Bible. Premi will be sure to become a Christian, and she will be the first woman baptized in Talwandi!” Alicia’s face beamed with pleasure as she added, “Is not mine a capital plan?” “It would be, were it practicable,” said Harold Hartley. He was sorry to throw any shadow of disappointment on the sweet countenance now so bright with hope. “But where is the difficulty?” cried Alicia; “I can see none. Premi has nothing to make her wish to remain in that fort, where probably nobody wishes to keep her.”